Vida Cruz-Borja is a teacher, editor, and writer of fiction and creative nonfiction.
Borja finished her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree in 2013 at the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), where she likewise received the Loyola Schools Awards for the Arts for Creative Writing in Fiction. She is currently a lecturer in the same university.
Both her works in fiction and creative nonfiction have garnered numerous awards. In 2018, she won first place in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future Award for her short story “Odd and Ugly” and she was likewise awarded by James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council with the Tiptree Fellowship, which celebrates works of speculative fiction. In 2022, she won the IGYNT Award for Best Creative Nonfiction for her essay “We are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive Protagonist.”
Borja has been a fellow at various creative writing workshops here and abroad, such as the Silliman University National Writers Workshop in 2012, the Iligan National Writers Workshop in 2013, the Clarion Writers Workshop in San Diego, California in 2014, the Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio Writers Workshop in 2016, and the University of the Philippines National Writers Workshop in 2023. Her collection of short stories, Song of the Mango and Other New Myths, was published in 2022.